Lexham English Bible LEB
New International Version NIV
1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or [do we], like some, need letters of recommendation to you or from you?
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Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?
2 You are our letter, inscribed on our hearts, known and read by all people,
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You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone.
3 revealing that you are a letter of Christ, delivered by us, inscribed not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets but on tablets of human hearts.
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You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
4 Now we possess such confidence through Christ toward God.
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Such confidence we have through Christ before God.
5 Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as from ourselves, but our adequacy [is] from God,
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Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.
6 who also makes us adequate [as] servants of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
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He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
7 But if the ministry of death in letters carved on stone came with glory, so that the sons of Israel were not able to look intently into the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, which was transitory,
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Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was,
8 how will the ministry of the Spirit not be even more with glory?
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will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?
Scripture quotations marked (LEB) are from the Lexham English Bible. Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software. Lexham is a registered trademark of Logos Bible Software.
Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide.